Has it really been 11 months since the last time I did a podcast with Father Bob Maguire? Unconscionable.

Today we talk about Bob’s imminent execution (“Keep Bob On The Job!”), Twitter, The Catholic Church in Philadelphia, Bob’s Lego auction, Julia wrapped in the flag, Bob’s appearance on Think Inc, iPhone 5, Troy Davis, Jim Wallace, how religion has changed since Bob got started, and much much more.

An excellent speech from Richard Dawkins. He explains that the Hitler was a Catholic and a Christian, NOT an atheist as the Pope is trying to claim, and then delves into some of the other stupid ideas this Ratzinger Pope has.

If you consider yourself a Catholic, you should think hard about these issues and ask yourself if you want to be associated with a man and a church with this history behind them.

Father Jim Denham, a priest of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, will be sentenced next month on 29 counts of child sexual abuse. Twenty-seven of the 40 men who allege abuse by the priest are seeking a settlement with the diocese.

Sentencing for this reprobate has apparently been dragging on since JUNE 2009. I wonder what shady deals the Catholics are trying to pull in the background so they can save a few more bucks?

Keep in mind always that these incidents are NOT just “a few bad apples” – sexual abuse was systematically hidden and protected by Catholic leadership from the Popes on down for decades. Why haven’t we had a Royal Commission into Catholic sexual abuse in this country yet, like they did in Ireland? Especially as we know that many Irish priests were moved out there when they got themselves into trouble?

I know from my interview with Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites that the Catholic Church are alleged to have been the main protagonist in this child abuse in Australia but the Federal Govt won’t hold a Royal Commission into the issue like the Irish government did. To deflect the issue, KRudd would rather just apologise. But there’s no justice in an apology. It boggles the mind why the leaders of this country don’t think that the Catholic Church should have to answer for its crimes like any other criminal organisation. As far as I’m aware, the Australian Sex Party is the only political party in this country that has a policy calling for a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

The Vatican was kind enough this week to give yet another excuse to SHUT THEM DOWN PERMANENTLY.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, made a statement assuring the UN human rights council that Catholic priests involved in having sex with young boys aren’t really engaged in paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Ohhh that’s okay then…. you stupid fucking asshole.

Apparently Archibishop Clueless made this statement after an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Keith Porteous Wood, accused it of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Clueless went on to say that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. As The Daily Irrelevant noted:

Only???

And that’s your defense of what happened? Really?

The USA has easily the largest percentage of their population incarcerated or on probation of all countries in the world.There are 1 in 32 people in the US either behind bars or on Probation, and that’s for ALL convictions combined.

That’s less than 3%. And the vatican has the fucking nerve to say it’s “only” 5%.

Folks, I ask again – when are we going to shut the Catholic Church down? It’s a disgrace. At the very least, in Australia, we should be having a Royal Commission into the levels child abuse perpetrated by the Catholic clergy in Australia over the last 70 years, like the one they recently concluded in Ireland.

When I interviewed Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites a few months ago, he suggested that if we had a Royal Commission into Catholic child abuse in this country we would discover TENS OF THOUSANDS of victims.

Let’s do something about it. If we don’t, history will judge us as a bunch of spineless, assholes with no integrity.

Oh sure, everyone seems more than happy to throw the book at Polanksi, but go after the Catholic Church? Oh no, we couldn’t do that.

Last week I wrote a post on the recent report out of Ireland about the true extent of child abuse committed by the Catholic Church from the ’30s through to the ’70s.

A few people on Twitter tried to suggest there was no connection between abuse in Ireland and in Australia, so I invited Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites onto the show. Broken Rites is an Australian advocacy group that works with victims of religious child abuse. He believes that if we had a Royal Commission into Catholic child abuse in this country we would discover TENS OF THOUSANDS of victims.

By the way folks, don’t forget – if you are looking for an easy way to listen to the G’Day World archives (all 381 episodes!), and you’ve got iTunes installed, go to our page on iTunes. While you’re there, give the show a quick review!

The Irish "Child Abuse Commission" released its findings last week and they are pretty harrowing. They blow a huge hole in the suggestion that child abuse was a small fraction of bad behaviour in the Catholic church. The commission finds that it was "endemic".

The Commission was set up in 2000 to conduct an inquiry into abuse of children in religious institutions in Ireland from 1936 – 1970.

According to one blog, the Catholic church is getting away almost entirely off the hook as a result of a Church-State deal:

In the closing days of the last Fianna Fail adminstration, a deal was rushed through which ‘indemnified’ the religious orders from any further financial responsibility than that agreed in the deal. This notorious Church-State deal, capped the contribution of the religious orders at €128 million (and only a fraction of that in hard cash), the religious orders claimed there had been no cover-up of abuse and no protection of abusers. We now discover from the Ryan report that this was a lie, and that several religious orders not only knew all about the abusers in their midst but concealed that knowledge from the rest of us.It was a fantastic deal for the religious orders, and an absolute stinker for the people of Ireland, and most importantly of all a retrospectively studied insult to the victims .The religious establishment here in Ireland , were in effect left well and truly off the hook, for a relatively small financial pay-out, most of which took the form of properties, which were in effect for various legal, and now, economic reasons unsaleable assets in any case.

Among the Commission’s conclusions:

Sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ institutions.

It is impossible to determine the full extent of sexual abuse committed in boys’ schools. The schools investigated revealed a substantial level of sexual abuse of boys in care that extended over a range from improper touching and fondling to rape with violence. Perpetrators of abuse were able to operate undetected for long periods at the core of institutions.

Cases of sexual abuse were managed with a view to minimising the risk of public disclosure and consequent damage to the institution and the Congregation. This policy resulted in the protection of the perpetrator. When lay people were discovered to have sexually abused, they were generally reported to the Gardai. When a member of a Congregation was found to be abusing, it was dealt with internally and was not reported to the Gardaí.

The recidivist nature of sexual abuse was known to religious authorities.

When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again. Permitting an offender to obtain dispensation from vows often enabled him to continue working as a lay teacher.

Sexual abuse was known to religious authorities to be a persistent problem in male religious organisations throughout the relevant period.

In general, male religious Congregations were not prepared to accept their responsibility for the sexual abuse that their members perpetrated.

Older boys sexually abused younger boys and the system did not offer protection from bullying of this kind.

Sexual abuse by members of religious Orders was seldom brought to the attention of the Department of Education by religious authorities because of a culture of silence about the issue.

And that’s just the sexual abuse. There was plenty of physical, psychological and emotional abuse as well.

According to the ABC, many of the Irish catholic priests who were the abusers were moved overseas to countries such as Australia.

When are the authorities going to do something serious about the Catholic Church and hold it accountable for its actions? I still maintain that in Australia it should be SHUT DOWN pending an independent commission into it’s crimes. It’s ridiculous to suggest this was something that only happened in Ireland. It is probable that the same conditions that lead to this kind of abuse in Ireland also existed in other countries, such as Australia. It has everything to do, I suspect, with the insanity inherent in Catholicism itself.

On 19 April, 2009, rebel Catholic priest Peter Kennedy said his last mass at St Mary’s Church in Brisbane, then he and his congregation stood up, marched out of the church, down the street, and into their new premises, where they are calling themselves “St Mary’s In Exile”.